Explication

2.
As She Passes

When I am sitting at the window,
Through the panes, which the snow blurs,
I see the lovely images, hers, as
She passes ... passes ... passes by ...

Over me grief has thrown its veil:-
Less a creature in this world
And one more angel in the sky.

When I am sitting at the window,
Through the panes, which the snow blurs,
I think I see the image, hers,
That's not now passing ... not passing by ...


(05.05.1902)

'Selected Poems' translated from Fernando Pessoa by J.Griffin.


This poem, though narrow in its explicit scope, is powerful in its technical prowess and its implicit meaning. The explicit scope of which I speak is the simple narrative of a lover/friend/admirer watching his/her lover/friend/object of admiration pass by a window, then learning of her death, then imagining the same lover/friend/object of admiration. At first, I thought that the subject of the speaker’s sight was just a person. However, this is nonsensical, as the speaker seems to become burdened with the knowledge of her death in the second stanza, and later imagines her. This sort of knowledge is not characteristic of a random observer, or even of a secret admirer. A second initial interpretation that I later refined was that the speaker-subject relationship was one of a man watching a woman. Initially, I supposed it to be two friends, but the speaker’s fixation on the actual appearance of the woman suggests a love—or at least interest—beyond friendship. The use of the first-person in the speaker is relevant in that it includes the reader in the speaker’s feelings and reactions. Rather than focusing on an object, place, event, person, or thing on its own as a third-person speaker may do, the first-person speaker allows a second focus—our (the reader) reaction to that object, place, event, person or thing. In this case, that reaction is intricately conveyed, saliently by tone. The poem’s tone is one of sadness, especially conveyed by the second stanza in line five, “Over me grief as thrown its veil:-.” Likewise, the theme of the poem is one of mourning and honoring a loved one in death by thinking of her. Though this theme is far-reaching in its accessibility to all of us, the purpose of the poem is loftier. The poem, if read in the context of considering society, could suggest that we should look to the past, because that past is still pertinent. It is even possible that this poem was an elaborate metaphor for that very message. In that case, “she” would be the progress of society. Society has its great times (her passing), and then we mourn the death of those times, only to barely miss restoring the useful ideas of the period into contemporary practicality. The blurring snow, then, could be society’s lack of introspection, or just peoples’ disregard of history. This factor is held constant in the great times and in contemporary times.


The poem is structured in a way that allows its meaning and effect to most potently be created. The first stanza features the speaker “sitting at the window, ”observing the “lovely images, hers” as she passes by the window. The ellipses in the final line of this stanza create a pace to the poem, almost simulating the pace at which “she” actually passes. This creates an effect of yearning for that person, and intensifies the conveyance of the speaker’s feelings. The second stanza is remarkable in that it does not deal with concrete imagery at all—it is completely metaphorical and abstract. This stanza explicates the speaker’s new feelings (line 5), explains the cause for the grief, and exalts the subject by asserting that, in her death, an angel is created. The third stanza, however, makes the poem. It blatantly echoes the first stanza, with its first two lines a verbatim copy of the first two lines of the first stanza. The other two lines are also similar—only slightly adapted to accommodate the death of the subject. In the 10th line is the volta of the poem, “I think I see the image, hers.” This line firmly establishes the effect of the poem as more than a simple illumination of grief, but rather, a longing for the lost, and a undercurrent of respecting and thinking of that lost one after death. The 11th line makes the sad—and especially, contemplative—tone and effect firmly established. It is also in the 11th line that Pessoa (or perhaps the translator) makes an important decision. Rather than repeat “not passes” three times to echoe the three “passes” in the first stanza, Pessoa/translator keeps the rhythm and pace of the poem by omitting one of the “not passes.” This choice is pertinent because it furthers the parallel structure in terms of the rhythm of the first and third stanzas and because it disallows the reader from being inured with her not passing; rather, it is surreal that she is not there—oddly out of place. Thus, her death is something that can be overcome, rather than something that is paralyzing. After all, the speaker is still able to return to the window and watch the passersby.